Rich Young is a long-time After Effects user from the San Francisco Bay Area. His After Effects and Premiere Pro round-ups provide viewers with an easy-to-digest summary of developments. He also supplies info and links for tutorials that allow users to do things in After Effects they thought were possible but weren't sure.

Adobe has released the 2015 version of Creative Cloud for most all its apps, with software updates beginning to rollout throughout the day. There's a big gotcha for installations, if you want to keep previous versions installed and avoid complications when installing CC 2015 applications, uncheck the overwrite old apps button in Advanced Option.

Although flicker has had its uses in experimental film, in video flicker can induce epileptic seizures – although it's mainly just annoying. Removing flicker is often easy but can also be quite vexing with certain combinations of out-of-sync lights, electricity, and cameras found in time-lapse and slow motion footage.

A few years ago there was a spate of interest in chromatic aberration -- fixing footage containing the color fringing, but mostly creating it for motion graphics and VFX realism. At some point, questions on creating this effect must have reached a critical mass, and tools and tutorials popped up to help.

Nebulas can be created several ways in After Effects: with "cards in space" of real images, or generated by Fractal Noise or 3D particle systems, commonly fractal-displaced particle arrays like Trapcode Mir, Form, Hitfilm Atomic Particle, and other particle systems.

Last year, Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot visited Japan to speak at the Video Copilot Seminar 2014 hosted by Flashback Japan. Google Chrome will automatically translate the summary webpage from the Japanese, or you can visit the translation by Google Translate in your browser of choice.

Andrew Kramer has been the most enthusiastic provider of footage and tutorials on creating shockwave effects in After Effects, and recently Daniel Brodesky created something similar, using Trapcode Particular instead of Fractal Noise for the base of the...

with tidbits on related apps
Written by Rich Young |
February 10, 2015

Here's another collection of news on tutorials, tips, and related tools assorted with Adobe Premiere Pro. There's a bit more about audio lately, though AEP is still playing catchup on Premiere news.
Magic Bullet Suite...

Here's another collection of news on tutorials, tips, and related tools assorted with Adobe Premiere Pro. Things have continued apace, though perhaps with rehashing, even behind the paywalls.
After Effects and Premiere Pro in...

2014 was only a slightly slower year in feature releases, with After Effects development underway that one might assume will help speed work within the app in 2015. In January 2014, the AE team hinted that performance, workflow, and...

Best of 2014 and holiday gift lists are mushrooming, but there aren't so many lists for digital video creators at this point, and it seems that most of them are on PVC (with more coming). We'll link in a few extra lists, and look back the year in After Effects for more ideas.
...

the highest-quality ProRes codec
Written by Rich Young |
October 31, 2014

Apple released a new codec this summer with updates to its video apps, Apple ProRes 4444 XQ. Arri decided to include ProRes 4444 XQ as a recording option in the ALEXA XT & XR. The codec isn't available in Adobe and most...

new version + updates and fixes [updated]
Written by Rich Young |
October 27, 2014

FXHOME has announced HitFilm 3 Pro, now available for pre-order for release in late November 2014 for just $299. Hitfilm, available for Mac and Windows, supports modern filmmaking workflows that require you to be an editor, VFX artist, and colorist at the same...

Andrew Kramer unveiled new features coming in the long-awaited Video Copilot Element 3D V2, which is compatible with AE CS5+ and promised for November release.
The new version is compatible with AE CS5 and above....

Updated with video and additional detail
Written by Rich Young |
October 6, 2014

Today at Adobe MAX 2014, Adobe released a new family of iOS mobile apps and enhanced Creative Cloud 2014.1 desktop tools that enable creatives to access, use and create from anywhere. Details on what's available today are available from the Creative...

Demo reels and keys to becoming a better artist
Written by Rich Young |
October 2, 2014

Andrew Kramer presented the keynote at the 2014 After Effects World conference and made it available on Video Copilot. It was edited using the multi-camera workflow in Premiere Pro CC.
The full version is...

Here's another collection of news on tutorials, tips, and related tools assorted with Adobe Premiere Pro. Things have been a little slower, perhaps in anticipation of a Creative Cloud update, though paywall training courses saw several new releases.
See the October 2014 update in

Ray-traced 3D is walking dead
Written by Rich Young |
September 3, 2014

While some may claim that the After Effects CS6-era Ray-traced 3D renderer is a minor feature that you can ignore, it's still a strong option for basic motion graphics with realistic reflections and refractions, and very fast if you have an Nvidia CUDA GPU. If you're not committed one way or another, you may want to check out an integrated in-depth resource from Eran Stern that compares major alternatives for creating 3D type.

Digital beauty treatments and cosmetic fixes in post-production often involve isolating skin with tracking and mattes for color correction and matching, skin smoothing, and blemish removal. Even skin matching across shots isn't always easy, but there's some help along the way in basic and advanced tutorials on the wide variety of tools...

Over the last several years a few users have experimented with using CycoreFX ("CC") plug-ins built into After Effects inside of Premiere Pro. The current version that ships with AE, the only supported host app for the product, is CycoreFX HD (AE Bundle Only). CS6 saw an...

Unmult, Xmult, channel and matting effects
Written by Rich Young |
June 27, 2014

Third-party unmult plug-ins for After Effects are used to create a composite with an alpha channel of a layer based on luminance or brightness. They're often used instead of composite modes like Screen that don't create an alpha channel. Alpha channels were discussed in a companion post recently,

Alpha channels are grayscale channels in addition to the color channels of a file. They define transparency and often delineate objects or selections as a matte or stencil. Alpha channels can come pre-matted ("shaped") or as straight, with transparency...

Much more added to NAB video apps reveal
Written by Rich Young |
June 18, 2014

This April, Adobe revealed many of the new features of Creative Cloud at NAB 2014, but that was for After Effects, Premiere, & the other video apps. It appears there's much more -- over 1000 feature updates for 14 desktop apps, plus numerous mobile...

Scripts, some tutorials, and plug-ins
Written by Rich Young |
June 16, 2014

Folder or unfolding layers has become popular in After Effects and other apps in the last several years, and tutorials, scripts, and even animated typefaces have popped up to help spread the meme. All we need now is an origami plug-in.
Perhaps the easiest way to start folding or unfolding layers is using AE scripts....

Using the Math.round expression in After Effects
Written by Rich Young |
June 9, 2014

A few years ago, Stu Maschwitz noted the utility of the Math.round method, which rounds a number to the nearest integer. If you're repositioning or animating an object in AE, you'll often run into AE's

There are a number of ways to white balance footage in After Effects and Premiere Pro, and Chris and Trish Meyer recently added another method, sampling with the Tint effect on a Solid layer set to Divide mode above the source layer. Eran...

Last November we did a quick exploration of 'How YouTube Works', which even with an update (on the "secret" algorithm) still left questions about caching unanswered. But explanations become apparent with a simple search word change to...

Chromatic aberrations, seperating RGB
Written by Rich Young |
March 19, 2014

A few years ago there was a spate of interest in chromatic aberration -- fixing footage containing the color fringing, but mostly creating it for motion graphics and VFX realism. At some point, questions on creating this effect must have reached a critical mass, and tools and tutorials popped up to help.

As noted by Andrew Devis, "cameras are notoriously difficult to get to grips with in After Effects" (see video at bottom). Once example is trying to fly a camera around a CC Sphere layer, which isn't really 3D.
Flying a camera around a CC Sphere layer in After Effects can be executed with different expressions,...

WebM export through Adobe Media Encoder
Written by Rich Young |
February 5, 2014

Brendan Bolles of fnord software released beta versions of open source WebM and Theora plug-ins for Premiere that allow import and export of WebM movies through Adobe Media Encoder. And that common Mediacore plug-in bundle also lets you import WebM,...

Creative Cloud for Design January 2014
Written by Rich Young |
January 16, 2014

Adobe announced availability of a major update to Creative Cloud, aimed especially at designers, with new features for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Even if you already used free trials, there's another free 30-day trial period for Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, and

Secondary action is ancillary to the primary action of an animation. Secondary actions help to create the illusion of life, heightening interest and adding some realism – whether in character animation, visual effects, or motion...

trackFinger AE is new iOS app (on the App Store) that allows you to record the movements of up to 10 fingers on an iPad, and then send tracking data as keyframes in e-mail text to paste into Adobe After Effects. But wait, there's more!

and the AE team's thoughts on the future
Written by Rich Young |
January 1, 2014

With 3 actual updates to After Effects in 2013, it's become difficult for many users to keep track of all the new features. So reading through top After Effects feature requests of 2013, plus a peek at what we’re...

Making circles in After Effects seems like a trivial exercise, but there are a ton of approaches to their various forms in design. Circles come in movement and repetition, from expressions & scripts, as

Spirographs in After Effects had it's 15-minutes of fame years ago and were lost in the mists of time (around here anyway), except for a few tutorial/project posts. Revisiting the topic reveals a variety of approaches and directions.
In ESPL: Dances of...

Spirals are used as design guides and elements or paths for text, shapes, particles, and layers. Here's a few resources for using and creating spirals in After Effects and other Adobe applications.
Think outside the box (or rather...

Advice from Todd Kopriva, Roland Kahlenberg, and others
Written by Rich Young |
December 28, 2013

A big addition to After Effects CS6 was the introduction of a Ray-traced 3D composition renderer that handles reflections, transparency, index of refraction, environment maps, in addition to the existing material options. Today in Creative Cloud CC, the...

but still wondering about caching
Written by Rich Young |
November 24, 2013

Though not long ago, it's hard to remember the era when RealMedia was the platform agnostic choice between Apple QuickTime and Windows AVI/WMV. Those formats lost relevance for delivery with the introduction of Flash Video in 2002-2003, which didn't require...

Given a cool reception by some on its initial release, some may have wondered if Brainstorm in After Effects was more useful than the now defunct Variations feature in Photoshop. As shown in various tutorials, Brainstorm might be useful...

Sometimes even crude jumpcuts are preferable than trying to gather nearly forgotten source files, or recompressing an old madly-compressed live stream archive that YouTube or Vimeo will recompress yet again. Here's a few apps that can make quick work for those looking for a low-cost way to salvage content that needs a few...

About a year ago, interface designers Nathan Shedroff and Christopher Noessel published their book 'Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction', on how sci-fi and real world interfaces influence each other. User interfaces and

'Make It So': a noteworthy book
Written by Rich Young |
October 3, 2013

About a year ago, interface designers Nathan Shedroff and Christopher Noessel published their book 'Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction', on how sci-fi and real world interfaces influence each other. User interfaces and

Video from Adobe's Dave Helmly
Written by Rich Young |
September 11, 2013

Early yesterday at IBC, Adobe announced major updates to Adobe Video apps in Creative Cloud for mid-October. There's more news from Adobe and partner HP on support for Thunderbolt on Windows, and a testing...

At IBC, Adobe has announced major updates to Adobe Video apps in Creative Cloud, which should be available in mid-October. This comes after Premiere Pro CC got 25 new features + bug fixes in a July update. Regular subscription...

A series of as-they-come notes on news of assorted Adobe Premiere Pro tutorials, tips, and related tools continues. A profusion of activity allows a collection of audio-related resources on noise removal, normalize, EQ,...

a video course from Chris Meyer
Written by Rich Young |
August 30, 2013

Although video/film types sometimes say that "sound is half the experience", sound and music are often an afterthought in After Effects. Music industry people who crossed over provide exceptions, like Chris and Trish Meyer of

Inexpensive cameras, mounts, and post
Written by Rich Young |
July 30, 2013

There's tons of options and advice for mounting cameras for shooting inside and outside of cars. Here's a few inexpensive options, and some advice from around the web, on smaller setups that won't invite unnecessary concern.
CNET has a nice discussion of

A series of as-they-come notes on news of assorted Premiere Pro tutorials, tips, and related tools continues. Here's a month of news for color-related Premiere resources.
For even more on color, see PVC blogs

Adobe announced 25 new updates to Premiere Pro CC, update 7.01, available less than a month after the initial release. These updates were developed in response to customer feedback and include new features that are designed around making...

A series of as-they-come notes on news of assorted Premiere Pro tutorials, tips, and related tools continues.
The planned release of Adobe Creative Cloud is June 17, 8 PM PST. For background and overviews, see the

A whip or swish pan describes the motion of a fast camera move, as in following a passing train or spaceship. Because of motion blur, it's most often used to smooth transitions between abrupt cuts of shots or scenes. While this is often done in post, Adobe doesn't include dedicated tools for this effect, so here are some 3rd-party filters and tutorials you can use to construct whip pan transitions in After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Creative Cloud, the Timeline, aspect ratios, Encore DVD, color, and more
Written by Rich Young |
May 20, 2013

A series of as-they-come notes on news of assorted Premiere Pro tutorials, tips, and related tools continues.
Creative Cloud User is a new blog in town that provides quicktips on CC apps, mostly the video ones. One example is

This is the beginning of a series of as-they-come notes on news of assorted After Effects tutorials, tips, and scripts & plug-ins.
In the last several weeks, Mylenium has written on a variety of possible issues some will face...

Staff Picks

Woody Woodhall runs the Sound for Picture channel on ProVideo Coalition, and just like the title implies, the articles there explore sound in media and entertainment projects in a totally unique manner. Whether...

I am privileged to be among the first tech journalists/consultants to review the just released Audio Technica BP40 high-end dynamic analog studio microphone. As I have covered in the past, dynamic microphones are among the most popular...

The Los Angeles Post Production Group (LAPPG) is an organization for digital filmmakers with an interest in post-production and film finishing. Founded by our own Woody Woodhall, the group is composed of many of Hollywood’s working industry professionals and is a supportive community...